J. Lister Holmes was one of a handful of Northwest architects who successfully crossed from the Beaux-Arts design tradition to the International Style. He studied civil engineering at the University of Washington then transferred to the architecture program at the University of Pennsylvania, graduating 1913. He returned to Seattle in 1920, briefly worked with local firms Bebb & Gould, Schack, Young & Myers, and B. Marcus Priteca, before setting up his own office in 1922. Holmes was recognized in the 1930s for his residential designs, which blended the International Style with distinctly regional vernacular elements. This prominent Craftsman and Tudor style fraternity house was designed by Holmes for the Sigma Chi Fraternity. In 1958, Holmes also did additions and alterations to the east, west and north elevations, the most substantial of which was an extension of the building to the north. Further additions to the second, third and fourth floors were by Bittman, Vammen & Taylor in 1988. Although the Sigma Chi fraternity house has a substantial new additions (second, third and fourth floors were redone by Bittman, Vammen & Taylor in 1988), they were designed to be compatible with the original building and the changes Holmes did in the late 1950s.

Scanned from original drawing in RGB at 200-400 dpi, saved in TIFF format, changed to indexed color, enhanced and resized using Adobe Photoshop, and imported as JPEG2000 using Contentdm software's JPEG2000 Extension. 2006.